From both sides now

Even several years into it, an empty nest can be hard to get used to. Especially during the holidays. No longer do I have play-by-play announcements from the family room of who's up next in the Thanksgiving parade as I prep the turkey in the kitchen. No longer must I search high and low for a favorite Christmas CD that's been nabbed from the holiday-music tin by a teen who wants to play it in her room or car. Nor do I have youngsters—or teenagers—waking up early as can be on Christmas morning, excitedly serving as the alarm that time had come for celebrations to begin. 

I miss all that and more—even the pilfered music—that was part and parcel of a full nest. Every now and then I indulge in pity parties, bemoaning the occasional sadness Jim and I now share since our daughters have grown up, moved on.

In my self-centered, self-pitying mindset, I often, no, I pretty much always forget that my daughters face their own sadness and challenges in the growing up, the moving on. Especially during the holidays. My youngest daughter, Andrea, recently—unintentionally—reminded me of exactly that.

Andrea was scheduled to work on Thanksgiving and wouldn't be able to spend the day with the family. As a counselor in a residential treatment facility for troubled adolescent girls, staff is required to be on-site 24/7, and Andrea's regular hours include Thursdays, which, of course, Thanksgiving was. Which meant she had no choice but to cover that shift. It was to be her first Thanksgiving absent from our table, so she and some friends who also had to work that day—plus a few who simply couldn't make it to their own family homes for the holiday—planned a holiday gathering of friends for later in the evening, after the workday was done.

The idea Andie couldn't be home for Thanksgiving—that now two of my three daughters wouldn't be around for the day—saddened me. But in these crazy economic times a job must come first, so I accepted it. I didn't accept as easily, though, the seemingly nonchalant attitude from Andrea each time we discussed it. I never voiced it to her, but in all honesty, there were a few times I thought my youngest might just be asserting her independence and actually pretending to me that she had to work but in fact was planning a full day of holiday fun and frivolity with her friends instead of her family.

How wrong I was. Turns out Andrea was just doing her best to stay strong in the face of reality, of growing up, of being an adult, of needing to stay employed. Her tough facade crumbled Thanksgiving evening. On her way home from the gathering, Andrea called me in tears. The celebration with friends had been fine, the food was good, she assured me, but it simply wasn't Thanksgiving at home, and it broke her heart to feel so far away from family during a holiday for the very first time.

"I'm 26 years old," she said through her tears, "I'm just being stupid and a big baby, but I missed being home. It was just...so...hard!"

I realized at that moment how rarely I take into account what my girls have gone through, continue to go through, on the road to adulthood and independence from their parents. I focus only on what I'm missing, what I've lost.

I don't consider often enough Andrea's steadfast determination to continue traditions instilled in her childhood, everything from green eggs and ham on Saint Patrick's Day to pumpkin-carving competitions for Halloween. Or a holiday turkey dinner with friends that may be fine...but oh-so hard to get through without crying.

I don't consider often enough the role reversal for my middle daughter, Megan, who as a child definitely enjoyed the giving but wholeheartedly preferred and relished the receiving at Christmas. She'd happily pose with her piles of presents, giddy with the prospect of opening them. Once her picture was taken, she'd dive right in with unbridled joy, not worrying one whit what went on around her. Now as wife/Mommy/grown-up, Megan must care plenty of whits, as she plays supervisor of the family giving and receiving, making sure celebrations run smoothly, successfully. In other words, putting everyone else first. Which can be hard, is hard.

I don't consider often enough that my oldest daughter, Brianna, leads a solitary home life yet still does her darnedest to make her home a happy space filled with holiday joy to enjoy on her own. Just last week she decorated her tree, by herself, with no one to help string the lights, hang the ornaments, place the angel on top. "You have no idea how difficult it can be doing it all by yourself," she later told me.

And I don't know. Because I have a husband to help. And because after Brianna finished her own tree, decorating her own place, she hopped in the car and drove over to help Jim and me decorate our tree, our place.

"I had to come," she said when I thanked her for doing so. "With Megan gone now and Andrea not able to help this year, I didn't want you and Dad to be sad doing it alone. We have to ween you off such things slowly, Mom. I know it's hard."

She's right. It is indeed hard—for all of us. I need to consider that, I need to remember that. Especially during the holidays. 

Today's question:

What did you miss most about holidays at home when you first left the nest?

Pfizer's rally cry for women: 'Return to You'

As I venture into life’s second act, the effects of the inevitable transition mount. Many of you likely know the drill: I get cold more often then I used to, then I get hot, then cold again. My weight has increased while my memory has decreased…or disappeared altogether at times. I’m a wee bit more crabby, or weepy, some days. And periods by which I could once set a clock are now the most undependable event on my calendar. My mind has become undependable, too, or at the very least, foggy with occasional moments of zero visibility.

I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in such things. Women my age are destined to have such experiences, I’m told, as well as the need to focus on our hearts and all things that keep it healthy. The concerns can be overwhelming.

One of the perks of such menopausal or perimenopausal unpleasantness is that it forces us to accept that we’re getting older, which is a good thing. For while there may be no way to ignore our age, no way around it, there is indeed a way to embrace it.

As we accept we’re getting older, we realize time is relatively short for doing exactly what we want to do, being exactly who we want to be. A lucky few may have succeeded at being themselves all along, but I wasn’t one of them. Maybe you weren’t either. Many of us weren’t—and now is the time for us to connect with others facing the same challenges in reaching our full potential.

Pfizer is encouraging women to share our “Return to You” stories, our tales of circumstances causing us to refocus on living healthier, happier, better lives. Here is mine:

Once upon a time I was a boss. I ran a department. I managed staff. I was a newspaper editor. An editor who edited and rarely wrote—a far cry from the writer I’d always considered myself to be. But hey, I was the boss, and for a short while that made me happy.

Then the economy tanked, my department was cut, and my staff and I joined the ranks of the unemployed.

I searched for jobs, applied for jobs, finally came within inches of an awesome new job—as a boss. There’d be decent pay, great benefits, staff to boss. But no writing. Again, a far cry from whom I really was, who I really wanted to be.

The day before the final interview for that great job, my head ached, my stomach churned. My gut was telling me the great job wasn’t all that great. At least not for me. I had to make a choice: go for the job or listen to my gut and get back to being myself.

I listened to my gut and cancelled the interview. So much for decent pay, great benefits, staff to boss around. But that was okay because none of that mattered, not to the me I was returning to.

What did matter was writing and making at least a smidgen of money at it, of course, as the balance in my bank account mattered, too. It was a risky choice to make, but it was the right one for me. My husband thankfully agreed and supported it regardless of how tight it might make our finances.

And tight it has indeed been. Yet despite the stress associated with making ends meet, I feel less stressed than ever before. Sure, there's still that whole perimenopause thing going on, but by returning to being me, I feel younger, more vibrant, more vital, more healthy. I readily accept challenges and opportunities I’d let slip by in the past. I eat better, and I exercise more.

Making a conscious decision to return to me led to me being better than ever—physically, mentally, spiritually. In turn, I’m better for everyone else in my life. I’m a better wife, a better mother, a better grandmother.

I’m also a better writer, a more productive writer. This post? It was my fourth completed article of the day—with not even a wee bit of being crabby or weepy in the process. At least not that I can remember.

What about you? Have you had the chance to Return to You? I'd enjoy hearing about it; feel free to share your story in the comment section.

Want to read other Return to You blogger stories? Visit the Pfizer page on BlogHer.com and prepare to be inspired!

15 things you may not know about today's grandparents

• The majority of today’s grandparents—53% of grandmothers and 54% of grandfathers—are Baby Boomers under age 65.

• The average age of becoming a grandparent in the United States is 48.

• There were an estimated 65 million grandmothers and grandfathers in 2010. By 2020, they are projected to reach 80 million, at which time they will be nearly one-in-three adults.

• The number of grandparents is growing at twice the overall population growth rate.

• A majority of those with grandchildren are women, in part because on average women age 45+ live approximately seven years longer than men. At the time the 2010 Census was conducted, there were about 124 grandmothers for every 100 grandfathers.

• Today’s grandparents are more likely to be college graduates (37%) and fully employed than at any time in the past.

• The grandparent-age share of the nation's income is 60%.

• The mean annual income of grandparent-age households was $68,500—about $500 above the mean income for all U.S. households. Among all grandparent-age households, about one-in-four had an annual income of $90,000 or more.

• They spend$52 billion a year on their grandkids.

• There are an estimated 4.5 million grandparentheaded households that include one or more of their grandchildren. That means approximately one in every nine (11%) grandparent households includes at least one grandchild.

• Three-quarters of grandparents are online. Forty-five percent are on social networks, and six percent have started a blog.

• 70 percent of grandparents see their grandchildren at least once a week.

• Forty-three percent exercise or play sports.

• Thirty-eight percent report having sex at least twice a week.

• Ten percent have a tattoo.

Sources: US Census Bureau, MetLife Mature Market Institute, Grandparents.com

Today's question:

What on the list surprises you...and what would you like to add?

This post also published as a guest post on Family Home and Life.

Hard to believe

Happy birthday to Andrea McArdle, the ultimate Annie:

Hard to believe Annie is old enough to be a granny—although I don't believe she is one. She is indeed old enough, though, as she's older than I am, and I'm a grandma twice over.

Hard to believe on both counts, to be honest.

Today's question:

Tomorrow, tomorrow...what are your plans for tomorrow?

Gramma's wake-up call

When I visit Bubby, he loves to wake me in the morning. I'm supposed to stay in my bed until he creeps in and tells me "Good morning, Gramma!" Then he usually crawls into bed with me and we chat for a few minutes before heading downstairs for breakfast.

If Bubby happens to sleep late and I get up before he does, he chastises me with, "I was supposed to wake you up, Gramma!" I then either return to my bed and we go through the motions of how things were supposed to go down, or we agree that I'll stay in bed the following morning until my wake-up call from Bubby.

Bubby's alarms of choice include simply whispering "Good morning, Gramma," shaking a jingle-bell adorned dog collar, or blowing his harmonica. The first is a sweet way to start the day; the second two are mildly alarming. One morning this past week, though, there was this—at about quadruple the decibels of this video (or so it seemed):

Although not the way I typically rise and shine, I can handle bells and I can handle harmonicas rousing me from a deep sleep. A psycho hip-hop reindeer rocking the house—and my brain—right outta the REM stage not so much.

Actually—and this is no joke or exaggeration, folks—I thought I was having a heart attack. Honest. I didn't remember the psycho reindeer from previous trips so hearing it go off at 6:03 in the morning was the trippiest experience I've had in quite some time. And the scariest. And the closest I've come to my heart going into overload and exploding right there on the spot.

Bubby didn't know to what degree he freaked out Gramma because instead of screeching my instinctive response of "What the <cuss>? <Cussing> stop that <cussing> <cusser> <cussing> NOW!", I simply said, "Turn that off now, Bubby. It's morning and that's too loud for Gramma."

Then I sat on the edge of the bed and tried to calm my thunderous heart.

An hour later I was still trying to get my heart rate back to normal. And wondering what's up with the near heart attack. Then wondering if I'm getting too old for this grandma gig. Followed by wondering if "too old to be a grandma" is an oxymoron of some sort.

It didn't matter because my racing heart likely just means this grandma is simply way outta shape.

And way not into the hip-hop reindeer thing.

Especially as a morning wake-up call.

Today's question:

What serves as your morning wake-up call? (Bonus points to those who say whether or not they use the "snooze" function.)

A grandma by any other name?

Unique boys, normal namesMy name, Lisa, was the No. 1 name given to baby girls during the '60s, according to the Social Security Administration. Which means there are a lot of Grandma Lisas out there. Or soon will be.

The decade before, Mary was the No. 1 name for females. One glance at the list of Grilled Grandmas confirms there certainly are a lot of Grandma Marys — as well as oodles of variations on the name — out there, too.

For both decades as well as the decades before, names in the top 1000 — which according to SSA make up 73 percent of all names for a given period — included more than a few handfuls of Rebeccas, Debras, Patricias, Katherines, Karens, Lauries, Susans, and others (you know who you are), along with variations on all of the above.

Which means, as folks of those decades make up the current generation of grandmas, there are lots of grandmas going by all those names.

Pretty normal, common, reasonable names ... for babies as well as for grandmas.

What I've wondered of late, though, is how normal, common, and reasonable today's crop of names may be ... for babies as well as for the grandmas — and grandpas — they will eventually become.

Take a look at a few of those in the top 1000 for 2010 (which, like I mentioned above, are 73 percent of names given for the year):

For little girls and future grandmas, you've got the basic names such as Isabella, Ava, and Abigail. But then there's Yamileth, Xiamara, Milagros, and more unpronounceable monikers. And those aren't even the ones at the very bottom of the list.

Little boys and future grandpas don't fare much better. Sure, there will always be Jacobs, Daniels, Michaels, and more. New additions, though, include Yair, Keon, Pranav, and Legend. Legend? Are they kidding?

I just don't get it.

But then again, I'm of the year that Cyril and Consuelo were at the bottom of the list. While likely seemingly odd way back in the day, those are now pretty much accepted and common names in the general population. So maybe fifty years from now, when today's newborns become tomorrow's grandparents, Grandma Xiamara won't seem all that strange after all.

Of course, after school years plagued by having to correct others on the pronunciation of her atrocious name, little Xiamara just may change that name the very second she becomes an adult. To something that rolls a little more easily off the tongue, something more pleasant to say and spell and hear.

Something simple.

Something like Lisa.

Today's question:

If you had the opportunity to name a newborn entering your family something completely of your own choosing, what name would you choose?

I've gone and done it

I've always known it would happen, but I've gone and done it, long before my time. I've gotten old. And here's how I know that for a fact.

Well, first a little back story.

When my girls were young, I swore I'd never get a minivan. I didn't care how much simpler it would make life with three daughters, there would be no dubbing me a soccer mom or minivan mom or any of those other stereotypes. Especially since my kids didn't play soccer anyway (at least not when they were little; Andie did play in high school and college and was a rockin' goalkeeper who sported her bruises and bangs with pride).

Anyway, the minivan-mom life was not for me. I was determined to steer clear of that, and I did. The closest I came was purchasing a Ford Explorer, which was kind of the same, only cooler. Like me. Or like I thought I was. (The fact I'm still driving that Ford Explorer makes me very uncool, I know. But it's very paid for, and that's what matters most at this point.)

Fast forward to the empty nest phase. My dad, a younger sister, and another younger sister (neither named Daryl) all own RVs. Recreational vehicles. A monster recreational vehicle at one point, in my dad's case. The kind that are obscenely decked out, obscenely long, and require obscene amounts of gas to get anywhere. And that require cameras at the rear and monitors at the dashboard so you can see what's going on in the event one's actually crazy enough to try backing that thing up. A monster motorhome so huge my stepmom, the navigator to Dad's driver, had to use binoculars to watch for exits ahead so they'd have time to change lanes without disastrous effects when traveling the interstate.

The RV owners in the family have great stories to tell of their road trips and camping excursions with their motor homes. Yeah, they look nice, travel well, and are a nice place to visit, but I certainly wouldn't want to own one. I prefer flying. Get on the plane, get off, get a hotel. That's my kind of traveling.

Until now. I'm a little tired of wasting the hours that lead up to the getting on and off of a plane, hours that could be spent getting somewhere. In an RV. A mini RV, to be exact. I'm not interested at all in owning or driving or sleeping in one of the monster RVs owned by many a grandma and grandpa. No, like the minivan aversion, I'm too cool for that.

But I recently admitted to Jim my desire to possibly one day own a smaller version, one that's 25 feet long or less. A Class C motor home, is apparently what they're called, according to a little searching I did online yesterday. A Class C mini RV that might look something like this with a cooler paint job, of course, as this one looks rather '80s to me (I did find more awesome ones online, but the photos were not copyright-free):

Yep, I could handle that. I could drive that, sleep in that, bring the dogs along when we go out of town in that. And I could imagine the thrills Bubby and Baby Mac (when he's grown a bit more) would get out of playing in that when Gramma and PawDad visit.

Of course, by the time we can afford such a thing, Bubby and Mac will be older, wiser, and more likely to think such a thing is very not cool, and very much for old fogies. Which, as I noted at the outset of this post, is apparently what I've become, long before my time. That's the only explanation I have for fantasizing about owning such a stereotypically old and uncool automobile...and hotel...all rolled up into one. With air-conditioning and a well-appointed sound system. And a DVD player, a refrigerator, and a bed. And most important of all: a bathroom.

Which sounds to me like a pretty cool way to travel.

Yep, I'm old.

Photo: flickr/The Motorhome & US RV Show

Today's question:

What's the most UNcool vehicle you've ever owned?